I’ve been thinking about expectations and how they’re basically premeditated disappointments. Like, every single disappointment I’ve ever felt was just the gap between what I thought would happen and what actually did.
You know that feeling when you’re already mentally spending money from a job you haven’t gotten yet? You’ve picked out your celebratory dinner, figured out how this will finally prove your mother wrong, maybe even started that internal monologue about how you’ll graciously handle your success. Meanwhile, you’re sitting in your car outside the interview building, sweating through your “power outfit” like it’s going to save you.
I used to rehearse entire conversations before they happened. I’d have their responses mapped out, my devastating comebacks locked and loaded. Then the actual person would show up and go completely rogue – asking about my “five-year plan” when I’d prepared for “greatest weakness.” I’d be standing there like an actor who memorized Hamlet but got cast in a Toyota commercial.
Here’s the thing about trying to control the future: your brain treats imaginary scenarios like they’re already happening. So when reality shows up wearing sweatpants instead of the designer outfit you picked out for it, you feel genuinely robbed. But reality didn’t rob you. You mugged yourself with your own fantasy.
The advice “just don’t get your hopes up” is completely useless, by the way. You can’t unknow hope any more than you can unsee a bad haircut. Whether you refuse to acknowledge you’re hoping or you lean into it completely, you’re still doing the hoping. The only difference is whether you’re lying about it.
There was this period where everything I touched turned to actual shit. Not metaphorical shit – I mean every single thing went sideways. Job interview I was “perfect for”? They hired their cousin. Person I was sure was my soulmate? Turned out they collected vintage lunch boxes and talked to them. Creative project I bled over? Got three likes, two from my mom, one from someone who clearly hit the wrong button.
And I kept thinking the universe was personally fucking with me. Like there was some cosmic board meeting where they decided, “You know what would be hilarious? Let’s watch Julia think she has any control over anything.” But the universe wasn’t even paying attention. I was just repeatedly throwing myself against the wall of my own bullshit expectations, then acting surprised when it hurt.
The shift happened when I got too tired to hope properly anymore. Not depressed – just done. Done writing fan fiction about my own life. Done treating every opportunity like it was going to save me from being myself. Done performing this weird theater where I pretended I knew what anything meant.
And that’s when life got interesting. Not better, necessarily, but interesting. Because when you stop needing everything to follow your script, you actually get to see what’s happening instead. Sometimes it’s disappointing. Sometimes it’s so much weirder and better than what you planned that you feel embarrassed by your small imagination.
The people who seem most alive now aren’t the ones with vision boards or the ones who’ve given up completely. They’re the ones who show up without a predetermined outcome. They apply for things without mentally redecorating their lives. They love people without needing those people to complete their personal fairy tale. They make stuff without requiring standing ovations from strangers on the internet.
They’re improvising their lives while the rest of us are trying to follow a recipe we found on Pinterest.
There’s this weird freedom in admitting you have no fucking clue what’s going to happen. Not in a nihilistic “nothing matters” way, but in a “let’s find out” way. It’s the difference between watching a movie you’ve seen five times – where you’re just waiting for the good parts – and watching something completely new that might be terrible but at least you’re actually present for the terrible.
I still catch myself building elaborate castles in the air sometimes. Planning acceptance speeches for awards I’ll never win, having imaginary arguments where I’m devastatingly articulate, figuring out how this new thing will definitely be the thing that changes everything. But now I notice it faster. I can feel myself getting heavy with expectation, like I’m wearing a winter coat in July.
The truth is, we’re all walking around heartbroken over things that never actually happened. Mourning futures that were never promised. Disappointed by people who never agreed to be the supporting characters in our personal movie. We’re directing films that only we can see, then getting pissed when the actors won’t follow the script.
So maybe the real freedom isn’t in getting what we want or even in wanting less. Maybe it’s in holding everything like you’re petting a cat – open palms, gentle pressure, ready to let go when it wants to leave. Because whether you’re ready to admit it or not, that thing you’re gripping so tightly? It was never actually yours to control anyway.
The life you’re actually living – the one that keeps refusing to follow your carefully laid plans – is probably way more interesting than the one you keep trying to force it to be. You just have to stop being the world’s most controlling director long enough to notice what’s actually in the scene.
Be Alive 🌱
Love ❤️, Julia
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